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Tuesday, 4 March 2014

Oscar Party 2014

Heyhey again everyone!The Oscars were on again! Having pretty much ignored Halloween and not done a huge amount for Christmas, I really wanted to make a lot of effort for the party this year. Dishes were cooked, ballots completed, and a LOT of champagne was drunk. In short: it was great!

I used a lot of decoration from last year, but some things changed as well. For example, the golden plates are great for serving cold light dishes. Anything heavy or warm is a bit problematic so I used normal plates instead. More dishes in the end, but safer for everyone.

I used the same bunting again but as the lady who normally makes these wonderful labels didn't make any this year, I just stuck the new nominees on the old bunting. It worked as well :) And of course we also had gold and black balloons around the living room.

I got these great decorations from LA when I was there. I had three (Lights, Camera, Action) and they were great. The little golden statue came from my office where it was just standing around. Perfect to borrow for tonight!

This sign also came from LA. I just loved the cheesy souvenir shops there!

I actually forgot to put the candles on the table as they are currently elsewhere but I still have them!

I also made my own Oscar statues this year. Ken dolls are majorly expensive, no luck in the charity shops here so I went on ebay and found GI Joes for fairly cheap. There were all drawn on and stuff but as they would be spray painted anyway that didnt matter. Once I had painted them though they were just in the box for a while until I found two flower pots I bought a while back for something else. Some more paint, a bf who known how to put it all together and voila, cool Oscar statues! I tried to get some good pics with the Oscar symbol on tv as well but sadly didn't manage. Maybe next year!

I also couldnt find red or black napkins anywhere (I was a bit last minute with some things) so I settled for white ones with a golden band

As is tradition, I made one dish for each movie. That was a challenge let me tell you! Only on the day before did I manage to have a set menu! As mentioned before, due to lack of pretty labels, I had to make my own with black paper, sticky labels, and glitter. I just used a pen though, so sometimes the writing is a little light. The menu was:

The Wolf of Wall Street: Champagne and lumpfish caviar on blinis. Yes, the bottle in the previous picture was at least 1.5 liter and it was even a Moet & Chandon who sponsor the Oscar broadcast!

Captain Philips: Cantaloupe Melon wrapped in Parma Ham

Her: Mini Pizzas. With all the food I had these were just frozen pizzas. I just didnt have time to make everything from scratch. But as they were the 'in-between' course, they were very much welcome.

Nebraska: Crowder Pea Succotash. I have no idea what crowder peas are but a quick search told me it was lots of peas in a pod. Petit pois have that so I used those instead. So good!

Dallas Buyers Club: Drunken Steak. OMG this was amazing! I can't cook a steak to save my life so thankfully the bf took over here. It was so good! We used rump steak as even my butcher didnt know what flank steak was but it was heaven.

American Hustle: Brussels Sprout Gratin. I had chopped everything the day before so this just had to be popped in the oven quickly.

Philomena: Colcannon. Simple, yummy, and Irish. There was just no way I could incorporate an omelette anywhere in this menu.

Dessert was a combination of 12 Years A Slave and Gravity: Apple and Blackberry Cobbler and Blue Moon Ice Cream. I will post the recipe for the cobbler separately later as I actually didn't use the above recipe exactly but combined two recipes. Also the ice cream ended up purple LOL

I had never made ice cream before and had borrowed my friend's ice cream maker but just in case I needed a backup for Gravity which were these Cauliflower Poppers. The website was hilarious, it basically said when you're in space there is no gravity and this dish has no calories. Yes indeed a stretch but they were really good actually. Plus in the end my ice cream was divine!

We watched the Red Carpet while eating as you can't play Oscar Bingo when eating, you might miss something! Here you can see Lupita Nyong'o being interviewed by Ryan Seacrest ;)

After all the food, we watched the ceremony, played Oscar Bingo and checked the ballots everyone
completed. As we're in the UK, I had to avoid any media to not have
everything spoiled and I asked everyone to give me their forms before
Sunday night. I won the Ballot with 12 out of 24 correct :) The prizes
for everyone was Ferrero Rocher which with the gold was quite matching
(even if my friend said it was not the Golden Globes LOL)

Yes we clearly had a LOT of champagne! We finished the bottled, opened another one and just had a lovely party. And then there was work the next day... but it was so worth it!